Optimizing YouTube for Lead Generation

Video is now an essential part of any successful social marketing and lead generation strategy. Not convinced? According to Forbes, Three-quarters of executives surveyed said they watch work-related videos on business-related websites at least weekly; more than half watch work-related videos on YouTube at least weekly.

When optimizing this channel for lead generation the first step is to create videos that both entertain and educate. Your goals should be based on increasing awareness, demonstrating products, sharing knowledge, and humanizing the company. The next step is to optimize these videos with targeted keywords giving them a much better chance of reaching page one in Google search.

Optimize Your Channel:

Your channel description should include a keyword rich description since this section represents the meta data that is searched by Google. Each section of your profile is a chance to add in your businesses most important keywords.

There are also options to add links to your channel description. This is a great opportunity to link keywords from your profile back to specific landing pages for your products and services. Although the traffic may be minimal, it's highly targeted. Adding a custom background is another way to add a call to action. Although a custom background is not clickable, it's a fantastic way to call out events, new whitepapers, and other relevant content.

Optimizing Individual Videos:

Your video description should be 2 or 3 sentences that include targeted keywords. It’s also a best practice to include a shortened link with a call to action driving traffic to your website or a landing page with a specific offer.

The tagging feature is the way that YouTube determines the relevance of your video and groups similar videos together. 5-7 tags are optimal and will ensures your video is associated with other videos that use the same tags and help your videos appear as a “related video” when users are viewing other videos.

Encourage Comments and Subscribers

When a video receives higher ratings and more comments, YouTube sees these as indications of higher quality, more relevant videos. Your goal should be to generate as many ‘thumbs up’ ratings and comments as you can for SEO purposes.

Comment on other popular videos in your niche is another way to generate more comments and ratings. It’s also a great opportunity to present yourself as an expert in the niche by making a comment that actually gets liked by the viewers.

Make it as easy as possible for visitors to subscribe to your channel. Subscribers are vital for your lead generation efforts because when they choose to follow your channel and your content they will be alerted to your latest video content.

3 Tips to gain new subscribers:

Have a strong call to action asking visitors to subscribe.

Add an annotation to your video with a call to action pointing to the subscribe button on your channel.

Embed the subscription button on your blog and in your social media website profile.